Tag Archives: Rowan Williams

My Tuesday morning walk to work kept me more in my head than usual. As I stomped along, half listening to Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury) gently drone on about the Chronicals of Narnia and how Aslan is an unpredictable, un-tamed lion, my mind wondered about the details of the coming day, both practical and existential: How would I meet a publishing deadline? How would I manage my typical work duties with a day-long trip to Hartford thrown in for good measure?

And most importantly, how would I get through this season of change? Yale’s graduation is only two months away, and when it comes, I shall have to say goodbye to people I deeply care about. I don’t want them to go. I selfishly want them to stay, to continue being part of this quirky, intellectual town and my life. I’m not ready to say goodbye. I don’t ever want to say goodbye.

And that’s when I felt an overwhelming need to look above me. There soared a hawk, white and gold in the morning light. It circled overhead and finally perched on the top of a church, a few feet from an empty crucifix.

I again thought of Aslan. Rowan Williams was right, Aslan is not a tame lion—you never know what he will next do. And so it is with life. Daily, we must stare into the unknown. Anything could happen, but you must trust, you must rise above the unsettling details, only if for a moment, and search for the longer, wider scope of your narrative. For no life is measured by a single group of details, it is measured by the whole of them.